Wednesday 25 March 2009 20.01 EDT
First published on Wednesday 25 March 2009 20.01 EDT

Anti-terrorist police in Bangladesh are searching for a British chemist - previously cleared twice of plotting explosions in the UK - after an orphanage run by a charity was raided by security forces which claim it is being used as a training camp for Islamist militants.

The Rapid Action Battalion said yesterday that it had arrested four people, including a teacher and three caretakers, and was searching for the head of the charity, Faisal Mostafa, 45, who is from Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Lieutenant Colonel Munir Haque, an officer involved in the operation, said the arrests followed a raid on Monday on the Green Crescent madrasa and orphanage on the remote southern island of Bhola.

"We found small arms - about nine or 10 in total - plus equipment to make small arms, about 3,000 rounds of ammunition, two walkie-talkies, two remote control devices and four sets of army uniforms," Haque said. "We also found enough explosives and other equipment to make several hundred grenades. We found some ordinary Islamic books, but others that are in line with extremists like bin Laden."

He said there were about 11 children between the ages of seven and eight at the compound at the time of the raid, but no other adults.

Bangladeshi locals told the officers that the madrasa, or Islamic seminary, was a British charity financed by Mostafa, who they said had lived in Britain for 25 years. It has emerged that Mostafa, who is married with three children, was given a suspended sentence for trying to board a plane at Manchester airport last November with a pistol in his suitcase.

In 2002, Mostafa was cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions, following a surveillance operation in Birmingham in 2000.

The Charity Commission said it was "seriously concerned" after the weapons cache was allegedly found during the raid. Andrew Hind, chief executive of the commission, said: "We are working with relevant law enforcement and other agencies to investigate the allegation that terrorist activity is connected with the charity.

"The matter is of serious concern to us, and we are taking this action given the gravity of the matter, the public interest and the need to protect charity work and funds. We intend, as is normal procedure, to publish a statement of the results of the inquiry setting out our findings once the inquiry is completed."

As well as being acquitted of the 2002 charges, Mostafa was cleared during an earlier trial 13 years ago of conspiring to cause explosions.

Green Crescent's website showed that it was involved in projects in Bhola as well as several others around Bangladesh, and at least one in Pakistan. Students in Britain and Bangladesh founded the British-registered charity in 1998, the site says.

KM Mamunur Rashid, another officer involved in the raid, said the charity had plans to build two more madrasas, although there were no details on the charity's website.

"It is a big madrasa and we have so far gathered that this whole compound is being used for militant training," he said.

Bangladeshi media reported that security forces believed the compound was used by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a banned militant group.

Bangladesh, with 154 million people, has the world's fourth largest Muslim population, after Indonesia, India and Pakistan.

The authorities have long viewed madrasas as potential recruiting grounds for militant groups such as JMB, which was blamed for a series of bomb attacks in the country in August 2005.

More than 70 people were killed last month, including at least 57 senior army officers, in the revolt at the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles in Dhaka, the capital. Last week, police said suspected Islamist militants had threatened the principals of several English-language schools if they did not pay "tolls".

A spokesman from counter-terrorism thinktank the Quilliam Foundation added: "If the Green Crescent charity has indeed been involved in militant activity, this will reflect very poorly on the Charity Commission, particularly given that Mostafa, the head of the charity, had previously been put on trial twice for terrorist offences. Ineffectiveness by the commission in identifying and tackling extremist charities leads to the British taxpayer directly subsiding militancy and extremism."

But a Charity Commission spokesman said the reported activities said to be run under the auspices of UK charity Green Crescent Bangladesh UK raise "very serious concerns".

A woman answered the phone at Mostafa's home in Stockport last night. She asked who was calling before saying: "He is not here."